Day 6. Uncertainty

“Art is like beginning a sentence before you know it’s ending. The risks are obvious: you many never get to the end of the sentence at all– or having gotten there, you may not have said anything. This is probably not a good idea in public speaking, but it’s an excellent idea in art making…” —Art and Fear, Chapter 2

If you’re just tuning in to this August 31 in 31, I’m working my way through the little book Art and Fear as I create one painting each day for the month. Chapter two has a lot to say about uncertainty, goes so far as to call tolerance of it “the prerequisite to succeeding.”

I can’t help but think of my former art students and their frustrated faces when some technique was not going as they had planned– shadows on a face that just made the subject look “dirty” or cool colors that for whatever reason wouldn’t make their backgrounds recede. And then the other side of the coin– a drip, or scratch, unplanned, that made what Bob Ross would call a “Happy Accident” and I might just call a miracle.

I believe in and live for those miracles. I pray for them by working through uncertainty knowing that for all the times it curses you with not-quite-right shadows or colors– it also gifts you with beauty your knowing hands would never have conceived.

I had intended for today’s painting to be less representational, more abstract, but I had trouble moving away from the shape of the bird. Even as I sought to pull out interesting blocks of color relationships from the confines of the form, I let the shape of the flamingo stay. It was as though it insisted. I opted not to fight it since there are still 26 days to play around with that hot pink triangle that I’d like to become a hot pink triangle and not a flamingo’s leg– but who knows what might actually transpire.

Uncertainty is exciting. That thing Picasso said seems true now more than ever: “Inspiration does exist, but it must find you working.”

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.